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Palestine/Israel: WLUML statement on the situation in Palestine/Israel

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WLUML

WLUML is well placed to identify extreme Right political projects hidden under religious/ethnic agendas and their devastating effects on progressive forces at large and on women in particular.

The international solidarity network Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) is well placed to identify extreme Right political projects hidden under religious/ethnic agendas and their devastating effects on progressive forces at large and on women in particular.

The present escalation in Palestine/Israel is not due to a
conflict between religious and ethnic communities. Clearly, it is the result of
the coming to power in Israel of extreme Right forces mercilessly bent on
implementing a colonial project.

Unfortunately, its brutality sparked off
the hijacking of the legitimate protest and struggle of the Palestinians by
extreme right fundamentalist forces within them. We know from experience that
the rise of such forces will inevitably work against the interests of people,
especially minorities and women in Palestine.

We here pay tribute to the
progressive people in Israel who have for decades now struggled against the
colonial project of their successive governments and today continue to do so
under such violent and dangerous circumstances. We pay tribute to Israeli women
and men who have refused to participate as soldiers in the war against the
Palestinian people. We pay tribute to those who demonstrate daily against
occupation of Palestinian land, be it by creating new settlements, by evictions,
by destruction of properties or by military occupation. We pay tribute to those
who physically joined, as human shields, the Palestinian villages attacked by
the Israeli army, the Palestinian plantations of orange trees and olive trees
that were pinpointed for destruction by the Israeli army.

We especially
pay tribute to the Women in Black anti war movement and to all the women
organizations that have consciously and stubbornly attempted and succeeded in
bridging the divide between Jews and Arabs. We fully support their struggle and
share their analysis of the fascist nature of the present government of
Israel.

We also pay tribute to all those from Arab countries who have
struggled for a just peace in the region without falling into the arms of
fascist fundamentalists, without adopting hatred and racism as rallying elements
of their struggle. We pay tribute to all those who fight fundamentalist fascism
from within their own contexts. We pay tribute to all those who have recently
met with their fellows in peace making within Israel, confronting the accusation
of betrayal for doing so and bearing with the following threats they
suffer.

We pay tribute to all those Palestinians women and men who, under
such a deluge of fire from the Israeli government and army, maintain their human
and political links with Israeli progressive and anti war forces in the hope of
building a durable and just political settlement.

We pay tribute to all
those who, in Europe and especially in France these days, confront the rise of
anti-Semitic racism - i.e. racism against "Jews" as well as racism against
"Arabs" or "Muslims"- and the terrorist acts of destruction that are now taking
place against synagogues or shops owned by French Jews. We pay tribute to the
Muslim religious authorities and ordinary immigrants from North Africa who have
arrived at the scene of these barbarities to show their solidarity and speak up
against racism.

We call on international media to - at last - give
visibility to progressive forces within Israel and within Palestine who offer
the only viable alternative to the war in the region.

In order to
immediately stop the bloodshed, we call upon the UN Security Council to take
extraordinary but necessary measures, including steps to enforce an immediate
ceasefire and withdrawal from Palestinian cities and send UN peacekeeping troops
to Palestine/Israel. We call on the Security Council to force the Israeli
government to immediately implement past UN resolutions that it has
systematically disregarded. By failing to act decisively, the UN Security
Council becomes an ally in the massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli
government.

We demand that the women and men from Israel and from
Palestine who have actually worked hand in hand towards a just peace during the
past decades of conflict be the ones to be called to the negotiation table. No
other group can bring peace to the region.